By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

There has been a lot of noise about the Chevy Volt, but Nissan seems to be equally serious about their EV, which will start production in 2010. This week Nissan showed off their latest test mule, based on the Versa/Tiida, but they are expected to reveal the production version on Sunday. More at Wired

By Sam Barer

Sound Classics

How could I refuse? I bet if you were in my shoes you wouldn’t have been able to walk away!

The long and short of it is that a friend of mine wanted to get rid of his 1979 Chevy K10 Silverado for about what I have into the tune-up parts on Sound Classics’ Infamous Craigslist Ferrari Dino 308 GT4 project. Despite having little room left for anything larger than Vern Troyer in the Sound Classics garage, I was like Angelina Jolie at an orphanage: I simply couldn’t say no.

The trump card is that Sound Classics is truckless. Ever since the POS 1998 Ford Expedition was pawned off to the dealer in 2006 when I got the new Toyota Avalon, all treks to acquire project cars have relied upon mooching off friends with rigs. Even my wife mentioned it was time to find a “good old truck”.

Continue reading after the jump!

Continue reading "Can You Have Too Many Collector Vehicles?" »

By Jim Brennan

UDMan

Welcome to the CarDomain Obscure Muscle Car Parking Lot, a regular feature which aims to expand the notion of what a muscle car is, and to showcase cars you may never have thought existed. Lincoln-Mercury introduced the Mercury Cougar during the 1967 model year, and by this time almost all the automakers were competing in the hotly contested “Pony Car” arena, so called because they were all modeled after the highly successful Ford Mustang. In 1967, Dan Gurney signed on with Lincoln Mercury to campaign the Cougar in Group II Sedan Racing (Then called Trans Am). There was the obligatory dress up package called the “Dan Gurney Special” for both 1967 and 1968, which included a decal, and other items. However, Lincoln-Mercury Dealers wanted something special, and Ford provided a “Status” car similar to the Shelby Mustangs, that was contracted to Shelby Automotive. Introducing the 1968 Mercury Cougar XR7-G.

Continue reading after the jump!

Continue reading "CarDomain Obscure Muscle Car Parking Lot: the 1968 Mercury Cougar XR7-G" »

By Fireball Tim

Movie Car Design Master

Yea, movie cars are cool. And I’ve done quite a few. But the best part of doing a car for film isn’t just the finished beast we shoot, it’s the thousands of people I get to meet each year at shows and events that tell me how much they dig the car. Even the funny looking ones. So, I decided to do a few ebooks on MOVIE CAR DESIGN. Check ‘em out.The 3 that I’ve launched now will be followed by about 17 others, covering everything from VEHICLES, MONSTERS, WEAPONS, SPACESHIPS and more. They’re gonna be totally cool, and at a measly $2.50, you’ll get to see stuff that’s never even been published by the studios. Shhh…

By Ron Honig

WaytooFurious

I have always tried not to be too judgmental when it comes to other people’s cars. I realize that one man’s dream car can be another man’s nightmare. Unfortunately there are times when I have to be honest, which brings me to the Vox. Built as a promotional car for Vox guitars, it was designed by George Barris. I know it was the 60s but this car just goes into my to freaking weird file, I can’t stand it. So what do you think, is this piece of history worth the $175,000 being asked on eBay?

By John Coyle

Deputy Editor

There isn’t a lot of info in this clip, but according to StreetFire member Civette, this is the world’s first WRX with an LSX motor.  Now personally, I don’t care whether this is the first or just the latest, because the General’s beefy powerplant looks nice and cozy under the hood, and damn, does it sound mean. Nice work man! Let’s hope we see some more clips from Civette in the coming days—I want to see this baby turning some donuts and making a dyno run…

By Fireball Tim

Movie Car Design Master

Now, to come up with a top ten ain’t easy. But as a franchise, there’s only so many. So here’s the best of the best according to this Fireballed opinion. See these one after the other, and in that way, you get to get as totally sick as possible… leading to taking the next day off from work …and watch the next franchise. (See how I just figured that out? I’m just so cool that way.)

What was I saying? …Oh, yea. Bar none, the best Action Genoirs of our time. Is Genoir a word? No. But I don’t care, so here we go…

NUMBER 10 – ITALIAN JOBBERS

Minis on a Mission. Fun to watch, (not so much Walberg). They used 90 MINIs in this film to catch all that action. And screwed up all 90. Yea, nice.

Continue reading "The Top 10 Movie Chase Franchises" »

By Rob Einaudi

Editor-in-Chief

Sadly, I couldn’t make it out to the Hankook Ultimate Track Car Challenge this year. It sucks, cause VIR is such a great track, it’s always a blast hanging out with the Grassroots Motorsports guys, and I really wanted to see Glenn’s IMSA Challenger in person. Needless to say, I was pretty stoked to learn that the old Mopar took home third place “using a classic recipe: more tire, more cubic inches.” Read the race recap over at Grassroots Motorsports

By Ben Schaffer

The Real JDM

The next generation of Hybrid cars are officially out and as expected the Japanese tuning scene is already hard at work to stylize and tune them!

The lead off image features my favorite design of the bunch by Exclusive Zeus. I really like how the painted the grill and center area of the bumper in black, it really helps give an aggressive front profile. Check out the rear under spoiler, its pretty damn nice! Very sporty for an Insight!

The usual acts are getting back into the game as well. Kenstyle has two new kits coming out, one for the Insight and one for the Prius. Continue reading at The Real JDM

By Brian Lohnes

BangShift.com

I hate heat waves. We’re locked into a miserable one here in New England currently. Temps over 90 degrees and humidity to match, it’s like we’re in bayou country. The flipside of course is winter, which has it’s own form of brutality in bitter cold and snow. That doesn’t stop hot rodding though.

I took this photo on 12/29/08. It was colder than hell and we were in the midst of swapping an RV-spec 440 out of my father in law Tom’s killer Plymouth GTX for one that was built to factory correct HP 440 standards. We were performing this operation in a garage with no heat and one of the doors open as the lengthy bustle of the GTX needed to be hanging out in the breeze so we could get the engine crane around the front of the car. At this point, I was probably hoping for one of these dastardly heat waves.

By the end of the day we had the new lump lowered into the car and by the end of the next day we had it fired up. Needless to say, the new mill really woke the car up and it can now back up those famous call out letters GTX.

When’s the last time you had a pair of big block Mopar engines on the garage floor?